I Have Nothing
by HKath
Summary: Santana runs away to try and start her new life, and ends up getting stuck with a group of people she hates. Some new life. Brittana
1. Prologue

**So this is just something that has been rattling around in my head for a while so I decided to actually sit down and try to write it. Hopefully it turns out okay *crosses fingers*. I don't own anything so suing would be a little pointless. Please review :]**

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**Prologue

A sad but overwhelming truth in life is that, for every idiot that throws their life away, there is someone else somewhere that gets hurt through no fault of his or her own. Unfortunately when adults answer that whiney "that's not fair" with the ever helpful, "life's not fair, get used to it", they don't know quite how accurate that is.

Regrettably, we find such a secondhand victim at the beginning of this story, as you'd probably be able to guess if you passed her. The image of a scruffy teenager downing cherry vodka alone on a low wall surrounding a block of council flats late at night doesn't really conjure feelings of optimism and joy, does it? Then again, this may well be fitting, as Santana Lopez didn't feel particularly optimistic or joyful at the moment. She took another long drink and looked around her. The vodka seemed to have already impaired her ability to make controlled, fluid movements. She moved like a rusty toy at one moment and then overshot her mark and swung around like a pendulum. Perhaps she was a lightweight, but anyone could see from the angry, unfocussed look in her eyes it was much more likely she had been sitting on this wall for quite a while.

Unbeknownst to any passersby, and one might of guessed even to Santana herself, as by this point she was staring vaguely at the road, this was no ordinary wall she had slumped on when she had been refused entrance to the bars. She had grown up on this estate; at least she had up until she was eleven years old. The memories she had of that time weren't all positive, but they weren't all negative either, so it was good enough for her. It also seemed poignant to her floaty, intoxicated mind that this should be the last place she sat before she started her new life.

By age eleven, Santana had become somewhat of a nuisance to her parents. The two year old they could put up with was no longer as easy to look after once she had gotten older and things like school began to get involved. The strain she placed on them, along with the added strain of being two "every now and again" alcoholics was becoming too much for them. In the end, little Santana was hauled away by the social services and placed in a foster home not ten minutes away. In her absence Mr. Lopez had little to distract himself with and turned instead to those things that impressionable minds turn to, with the aim of alleviating their ongoing boredom. He drank a lot, cared about very little and littered his life with enemies. He died three years later, when Santana was fourteen, after falling two stories from a friend's balcony window.

"A tragic accident" the papers had called it.

Santana's mother, although rightfully devastated, was in some ways relatively relieved. Her late husband had become almost impossible to live with after Santana had left. Some may have murmured under their breaths that the feeling had been mutual. Mrs. Lopez processed an unusual talent for falling pregnant when, according to gossip, Mr. and Mrs. Lopez hadn't been intimate in years. Not since little Santana had left. How could they? They didn't even like each other. Mr. Lopez had given up asking questions when his third "son" Alberto was born with a shock of bright red hair, despite the fact that neither him, nor Mrs. Lopez shared this trait. He didn't like to point out that it was a disturbingly similar shade to that of the milkman's. It wouldn't have made very good gossip anyway. Fooling around with the milkman? Did the woman have no creativity?

Not one to be deterred by tragedy of any sort, Mrs. Lopez took her husbands death as a sort of challenge. She cleaned up her act and wiped the slate clean too, and now lived relatively comfortably with her three sons, the dark-skinned William, Toby with his unusually bright green eyes and, of course, redhead Alberto. Had she any time to herself while looking after her three boys under five to look out of the window, she might have seen a more grown up Santana Lopez. But she wouldn't have recognized her. Santana was just another discrepancy of her past life, wiped clean.

Santana watched as one by one the little lights of the council flat were snuffed out and the street became dark apart from the flickering streetlights overhead. She had finished her vodka. Never having been one for recycling, she chucked the empty bottle into a hedge opposite her.

Pulling her leather jacket around her she was disappointed to find that this motion did little to warm her up, despite the burning sensation in her throat and chest from the vodka. It was more like a dull burn, like feeling a hot pan through a tea towel. It was enough to alert you that what was underneath was warm, but had neither the strength nor the passing fancy to pursue any further. Frankly, between her scalding insides and ice-cold skin, she just felt slightly ill.

Abandoning any thoughts of proper warmth for the time being, she reached down to a Wal-Mart shopping bag at her feet, the bag that now held everything she had. It contained all of her memories of her past life and all she could take to get to her new one. After fishing around through the assortment of mismatched clothes and other random belongings she finally found a battered looking but perfectly functional mobile phone. She was aware she had been sitting on this little wall for far too long. Her escape had gone so well that the other aspects of her plan had been forgotten. However, the thought of wandering the streets on her own in this part of town so late was enough to terrify even her. She turned her phone on and scrolled down the list of contacts. She needed a place to stay.

Megan? No dice. She had moved away to Bluffton to start college months ago.

Holly? Never. Santana would rather walk to Bluffton with rusty nails in her shoes than ask that smug slag for a favour.

Dean? No. It was already two o'clock in the morning. He would be as drunk as she was by now and she didn't fancy adding 'fatal car crash' to her list of dramas tonight.

Tom? No way. Too handsy.

Lizzie? Nah, she lived with her parents, who despised the very sight of her.

This was starting to get hopeless. Santana started to shiver as she scrolled up and down the list, growing ever more anxious as she realized that none of them, not even her old school friends, who had just six months ago been worshipping the ground she walked on, would be particularly pleased to find her turning up at their doorstep, shit-faced and newly homeless. Suddenly her eye caught on an unfamiliar name; Noah Puckerman. That was a weird name. She didn't remember a Noah Puckerman…

Oh, yeah! Puck. She smiled as she remembered. The mohawked guy she had met at a party a few weeks ago, where he had spent the night shamelessly flirting with her, with very little success. He had seemed like a nice enough bloke, and quite honestly, this was her last chance. She typed out a message.

_puck, its santana. From ellies party? I was wondering if it might be possible to stay the night? Sleep off the hangover, ykno?_

Santana knew it was probably a bit much to ask that of a guy she barely knew, especially at two in the morning, but she remembered that Puck had mentioned that he worked late shifts for his delivery business, so it was worth a shot. She sent the text and sat back down on her wall, drumming her fingers against the crumbling bricks. Suddenly this didn't seem like such a good idea. Puck had been a bit of a douche at that party, especially when she had made it pretty clear that she wasn't going to put out for him. She bit her lip and stood up sluggishly. There was no way he was going to pick her up.

Suddenly her phone vibrated in her hand.

_Sure, no worries. Need me to pick you up?_

She grinned. Maybe Puck wasn't such a douche after all.

_Thanks puck, I'm at the Dickson flats near the pub._

She stuffed the phone back into her bag and settled down to wait.

Her foster home was no longer in sight, it was a few roads down from where she sat, but it still seemed uncomfortably close, looming over her like some psycho stalker. She felt like Mrs. Teller could just take one glance out of her window with her beady little eyes and see Santana sitting on this low wall, painfully visible in the spotlight created by the streetlights. But no, she was just being silly. Silly, melodramatic and paranoid. In all honesty that place was so full to bursting these days that she doubted that even if Mrs. Teller had developed the ability to see through the houses protecting Santana, she wouldn't have had the chance to. The triplets were teething and Billy and Elliot were probably causing some sort of minor explosion. An unwanted knot of nostalgia ripped through her stomach.

The streetlight above her flickered and a beat-up little transit van chugged round the corner.

Santana laughed as Puck pulled up and stepped out of the van, "So this is your 'sweet ride' you were telling me about, eh, Puck?"

He scowled at her good-naturedly. "Oi, piss off. By that point I had pretty much decided you were never going to want to see it. Why bother telling the truth? Anyways it's either this or the bus. Make your choice, Lopez."

Holding up her hands in defeat, Santana made her way around the van and climbed into the passenger seat. Puck grinned at her as he got back in and started up the engine. She tried not to notice the way his grin faltered, just for a second, as he spotted the plastic bag and focused instead on watching the flats slip out of sight in the rearview mirror, hopefully for the last time.


	2. Chapter 1

**Thank you to my lovely reviewers! No brittana in this chapter I'm afraid, but I'll get there. More Pucktana friendship, because I wierdly love it. **

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**Chapter 1**

Puck pulled up at a small house in a suburb about ten miles away. It looked alright, at least Santana supposed that it did, she couldn't really see it in the darkness. Pressing a finger to his lips, Puck gave her an impish grin and killed the engine. He opened the door and stepped out, gesturing for her to do the same. She followed him around the house to a little iron gate that looked a little worse for wear. Pulling a key out of his back pocket, he opened it, wincing melodramatically as it squeaked on its hinges, and tiptoed towards the house. Literally tiptoed, like a robber in a kids pantomime. Santana followed with a mixture of amusement and distain.

"If we're real quiet then my mo-"

Suddenly, the outside light switched on. The backdoor opened. Puck yelped as he caught sight of the figure in the doorway. It was a huge person, carrying a bat. Panicked, Santana looked to Puck, who had an expression of blood curdling fear on his face.

"Noah Puckerman, is that you?" came an indignant snap from the figure, but as whoever it was stepped onto the porch, Santana saw that the terrifying figure was nothing more that… a tiny woman?

It was a tiny woman. She stepped fully into the light and Santana could see that she was shorter than herself and quite a lot shorter than Puck. The shadows had made her look so much bigger than she actually was. She was thin and wiry and her hair was scraped back into a rather severe looking bun that was brown streaked with grey. Her face was grim and slightly wrinkled, but she had quick, soft brown eyes, exactly like Puck's.

"Noah? What on earth are you doing? I thought you were a burglar! Who is this?" She said all this very quickly and sharply and Puck flinched. It almost looked funny, big bad Puck being yelled down by a woman that barely came up to his neck. Santana had to admire her bravery for being willing to face the would-be burglars with a baseball bat in the middle of the night.

"This is Santana," Puck mumbled, "She's a friend of mine."

The woman looked Santana up and down. She took in the dark circles under her eyes and her tatty clothes before coming to rest on the plastic bag at her feet. Her face softened.

"You'd better come in then," she said, glaring back at her son who was sheepishly looking at his feet, "Next time a friend asks to stay over, just _ask_ me, Noah. You nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack."

Puck and Santana looked at each other before following her into the house. The woman bustled around the hall, pulling a duvet out of the cupboard and handing it to Puck.

"Santana, was it? I take it you've guessed; I'm Noah's mom. You can have his room. No arguments," she said, as Santana was about to protest, "Upstairs, second door on the left. We'll talk about this in the morning."

Santana just stood there with her plastic bag of belongings, looking dazed and lost. She blushed as Puck's mom seemed to notice her apprehension and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay, sweetie. We'll sort this out, whatever it is. Go get some sleep; you look like you need it. Call me Sarah, by the way."

Santana nodded. "Thanks." She climbed the stairs to Puck's room, which was typically teenage male, not that she cared. The buzz from the vodka had worn off and now she just wanted to sleep. She wasn't sure she wanted to spent tomorrow 'sorting things out', but she was definitely grateful to the Puckermans, and even more grateful for this soft bed.

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Unfortunately, the next morning, the bed seemed a lot less comfortable. Light was streaming obnoxiously through the window and she was quite sure that she was lying on about eight different items of clothing. However, that was nothing compared to the knot of worry in her stomach. She was going to have to tell the Puckermans about the foster home, they would almost certainly send her back. So much for her grand escape. She had made it ten miles away and had lasted one night before being ratted out

She tied up her hair, tried hard not to look at herself in the mirror, and went downstairs. Time to face the music.

The sound of the radio drifted upwards as she descended the staircase. It was playing a song she'd never heard before, but it was quite pleasant enough with its wistful voice and jangly acoustic guitars. The singer was male, and had an accent, from somewhere in Britain perhaps? The tranquility of the song, however, seemed not to have transpired to the rest of the house. The kitchen was a mess. There were pots and pans all over the counters and about a dozen different smells rushed to her nostrils and made her eyes water. The television was on in the next room and a newscaster was yelling about something or other. She could hear other voices, the acerbic snap of Mrs. Puckerman, the arrogant grunting of Puck and a new voice, one a lot more high pitched and a little nasally. Santana guessed it was a younger sister.

What surprised her mostly was that, despite the apparent chaos and noise that seemed wholly unnatural for only three people to be making, she actually felt… good about this place. There was something totally unthreatening about it. How could one be scared in a house where the windows were open and where sunlight, which had seemed so intrusive before, was streaming through them onto the kitchen's orange-yellow walls? Although small and messy, it was certainly charming in its own little way.

Suddenly, Mrs. Puckerman burst through the kitchen door, shocking Santana out of her wistful little bubble. For a split second she looked at Santana as if she had never seen her before, like she'd convinced herself it had all been some very strange dream. The look was gone as quickly as it had come, though, for she put down the plates she was carrying on the kitchen counter and smiled a sad smile.

"Santana. Did you sleep well?" she asked, kindly.

"Yeah, thanks. Thank you for… you know… letting me stay." Santana replied, nervously fidgeting with her hands. Her plan hadn't been to become a burden to anyone, but then again, she hadn't exactly had a plan at all.

Mrs. Puckerman nodded, "Would you like some breakfast?" she asked, "We have eggs, cereal, yoghurt. Anything you want."

Santana shook her head, "I'm not really that hungry." She said.

Mrs. Puckerman simply nodded again. "Perhaps we should talk first. Why don't you come through to the sitting room?"

She turned off the radio and Santana followed her into the next room, where they were met by the curious glances of Puck and a little girl, about eight or nine, who must have been Puck's sister.

"Talia, why don't you go and brush your teeth?" Mrs. Puckerman asked pointedly. Talia looked as if she was about to protest. "Now." Mrs. Puckerman warned. Groaning, and shooting Santana and her mother stubborn and curious glares, she left the room. Puck muted the television and looked nervously at his mother.

Santana was now left with no distractions, just two confused faces expecting some sort of answer. Or many answers. Answers to questions she wasn't sure she was ready to give yet. Answers she wasn't even sure she could give herself.

"So, why don't you tell me what happened last night before you two nearly gave me a heart-attack in my own back garden?" Mrs. Puckerman asked, gesturing for Santana to sit down in the armchair opposite as she took a seat next to her son on the couch.

Santana looked to Puck for help, but he looked just as confused as his mother did.

"Santana texted me, she said she needed a place to stay the night," he began, not taking his eyes off Santana, "I figured you wouldn't be so happy about it, so I– "

"Didn't ask me." Mrs. Puckerman finished off for him, shooting her son a reproachful look. Puck rubbed the back of his neck, nervously. "Where you just going to hide her in your room?" she asked, suddenly incredulous.

"I hadn't really thought that far ahead…" Puck mumbled.

Mrs. Puckerman rolled her eyes and looked back to Santana, "Why did you need a place to stay? Where are your parents?" Santana shrugged, although she knew full well where they were. The truth would have been too embarrassing.

"I'm a foster kid," she said. She watched for the inevitable look of pity to cross Mrs. Puckerman's face, but it never did. The woman just nodded understandingly and scratched her forehead.

"Were you planning to go back?" she asked, softly.

Looking back down at the floor, Santana shook her head. "Not really."

"So you've… what? Run away?" Mrs. Puckerman asked.

Santana nodded. It was a pretty fair assessment.

She could see that their eyes were still full of questions, and she was more than ready to lie to them or to stand up defiantly if they told her to bog off, but they didn't do either of those things. They just looked at each other for a split second and then back to her.

"Any friend of Puck's is welcome here," Mrs. Puckerman started, "I'm not having any kid that could have a warm bed sleep on the streets. If you pull your weight a little, help me around the house, the you can stay here as long as you need to."

Santana stared at her, open-mouthed. Did this woman have no sense at all? She could be a gang leader, or a drug dealer, and she was offering her a room? Not that she was either of these things, but still. Was she crazy, or just kind to the point of utterly bizarre?

"Th…thank you," she breathed, still shell-shocked. Mrs. Puckerman gave her a curt nod, and then a small smile.

"You're welcome, Santana. Why don't we get you some breakfast?


End file.
